Bertrand Piccard is a Swiss psychiatrist and adventurer. In 1999, he became the first person to circumnavigate the globe in a hot air balloon without landing. In 2016, he repeated the feat, this time in a solar-powered aircraft specially designed for the occasion.
Both attempts were accompanied by many failures. For example, he had previously made two unsuccessful attempts to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon.
Alongside his love of adventure, Picard, as a psychiatrist, studies human reactions to crises and twists of fate. In 2017, his book "The Right Height" was published, in which he determined:
People tend to strive for a more or less stable equilibrium. In the process, they develop habits, reassure themselves, and create an emotional foundation within which they can cope with everyday life as smoothly as possible.
What happens when the unexpected happens, a crisis like Covid-19 hits us and our protective wall collapses?
Losing balance undoubtedly leads to stress. Experience shows that stress makes us more efficient. A certain amount of stress is even beneficial and helps us work better. Efficiency rises. We get a taste of improving our achievements.
But what happens when the intensity and duration of the workload exceed what is tolerable?
Too much stress can derail us. We find ourselves on the brink of a dangerous abyss and fall in. Our resistance is exhausted. Our ability to act disappears.
How deep into the abyss do we sink?
Until we find a new balance within ourselves, during which we gather our last strength and continue to crawl on our knees when we can no longer walk properly.
Once we reach the "lower limit", there are three possibilities:
1. We are in a given place;
2. Let's try to restore the balance that was previously lost;
3. Develop the ability to rise above where we were before the crisis.
To move higher, it is necessary to create something new, to perceive oneself in a new way as an individual who has developed new qualities for a new approach to the new world.
Every crisis exists to the extent that we protect ourselves from it and lasts as long as we linger at the point where we have lost our balance. We try with all our strength to reach the state that we were previously accustomed to and loved. At this time, it is this defensive state that intensifies our pain.
Successful businesses stand out from the rest by not desperately trying to return to the past, i.e. the pre-Covid-19 state, but instead spend their energy climbing higher and investing in creating a better future.
How do you motivate yourself and your employees during a crisis? What different incentives do you offer to different personality types? What causes of lack of motivation do you deal with?
Would you like to find out the answers to these questions? Register today for our seminar "Self-Motivation and Employee Motivation" .
